Arvato Services Strengthens Position In Netherlands Market With Virtual SIP-Based VoIP Contact Center Based On Aspect Software Technology

Aspect Software, Inc., the world's largest company solely focused on the contact center, recently announced Arvato Services, a leading global third-party customer service outsourcing provider, is leveraging 400 seats of Uniphi Connect with its Aspect CallCenter ACDs to create a virtual SIP-based Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) contact center to enhance its customer service efforts. Arvato is one of the first companies in Belgium and the Netherlands to roll out a large-scale IP contact center initiative.

Arvato Services provides customer service and other customer interaction outsourcing services for large enterprises, such as the State Lottery, ABN AMRO and Oxxio. Arvato also offers data management capabilities, printed paper production, and stock management and logistics.

Arvato wanted to introduce VoIP for several reasons, including to improve its operational excellence and to enable the contact center to rapidly scale and adapt as customer and business needs change.

"When the state lottery has its drawing, there is a sharp increase in customer contacts which means Arvato has to be prepared," said David West, Senior VP International Sales EMEA, Aspect Software. "With SIP-based VoIP and the virtual contact center capabilities that Aspect provides, Arvato is able to have the appropriate resources available to manage those contacts and maintain a consistent level of service."

Uniphi Connect is a hybrid solution that enables users to deploy both Public Switched Telephone Network (PSTN) and Internet Protocol (IP)-based agents on a single platform. The solution works in conjunction with Aspect CallCenter ACD, a high-volume call routing application, and enables Arvato to create a virtual contact center that is integrated with its central office management systems. In addition, the internal IT support desk staffs across three offices in Antwerp, Abcoude and Venlo are connected by VoIP.

Following a lengthy research process, Arvato selected Uniphi Connect because of the superiority of the Aspect Software solutions. Leon van Adrichem, CTO at Arvato Services Benelux, states, "Aspect CallCenter ACD is proven technology with extremely high reliability and virtually one hundred percent uptime. Additionally, Aspect is our supplier for other solutions, so this was a natural progression. Our investment remains protected and the implementation time was considerably shortened as Aspect already knows us. It has gone flawlessly."

With the new implementation, Arvato has already seen a number of benefits including:

1. Significant savings on telephony costs, which keeps the price per user low
2. Minimum time to execution (1 hour/25 seats) at minimal costs
3. Increased flexibility to add or decrease agent seats on demand
4. Ability to leverage remote services (in-house and externally) providing enhanced overflow to external contact centers as needed
5. Disaster recovery options by using the contact center in Antwerp as a backup centre for Venlo, and vice-versa
6. Offshore services being ready for application
7. No extra investments in additional hard and software

Added Van Adrichem, "This solution also helps Arvato offer our contact center capabilities as a hosted service, meaning third parties are able to offer their services by building upon our infrastructure. This is an important step forward in our strategy to be an innovative market leader in the field of complex solutions in the services industry."

Markus Trost, CEO, Arvato Services Benelux, concludes: "With the implementation of this new technology we can offer our customers a state of the art solution. In the chain of communication between companies and customers Arvato Customer Services is playing a growing central role. Outsourcing of Customer Services is increasing, even to a larger extent of complexity. There is also a strong tendency in the market to professionalize the customer contact even more, from a commercial point of view and to use this information as a source of information in order to optimize the business processes. Customer Services is a strategic activity for Arvato with considerable growth potential that link up perfectly to our other activities."

About Arvato Services
Arvato Services is a subsidiary of arvato AG, the internationally networked media service provider of Bertelsmann AG. Arvato Services is a leading global third-party outsourcing provider offering its clients customized end-to-end business solutions at every stage in the value chain, from either the pre-sales, sales or post-sales lifecycle. On the demand-side, these services include Web-based sales and order management and processes through call centers and online. On the supply-side, services include procurement, warehousing, assembly, repair and distribution. Clients are leading companies in the automotive, telecommunications, information technology, media, financial services, and healthcare and travel industries. Arvato Services employs more than 27,000 staff at more than 40 locations worldwide. For more information about Arvato Services, visit www.arvato.com.

About Aspect Software
Aspect Software, Inc. founded the contact center industry and is now the world's largest company solely focused on Internet Protocol (IP) and traditional voice-based products and services for customer service, collections, and sales and telemarketing business processes. Each day, Aspect Software powers more than 125 million customer-company interactions at thousands of in-house and outsourced contact centers around the globe. Its pioneering Unified IP Contact Center product line reduces complexity by uniting automated call distribution (ACD), predictive dialing, voice portal, email management, Web chat and collaboration, and recording and quality management to provide consolidated administration, routing, reporting and workflow. PerformanceEdge, the industry's first fully synchronized contact center optimization suite combines workforce management, recording and quality management, performance management, campaign management, and coaching and eLearning applications. And, the company's trusted Signature product line delivers reliable best of breed ACD, predictive dialing, CTI and Voice Portal capabilities. Headquartered in Chelmsford, Mass., Aspect Software has operations across the Americas, Europe, Africa, the Middle East and Asia Pacific. For more information, visit www.aspect.com.

SOURCE: Aspect Software, Inc.,